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2015.09.30 - Street Cleaning 101
Something has not been right in the streets of Beacon Hills for the last couple of nights. For those who know the signs, people have gone missing - then turned back up again - or have simply 'gone missing'. In cases of those turning back up again... there are 'changes' to them, subtle changes. It's enough to bring a certain bleach-blond vampire from San Francisco, chasing down rumours of demon and vampire activity... not to mention the promise of a good brawl or three. Spike finds himself traipsing down the alleys of Downtown Beacon Hills - strutting as though listening to music - peering along streets for any signs of nefarious dealings. "This ain't yer turf, blondie," says a voice behind him. Spike stops. He is standing at the mouth of one alley, when three figures emerge from the shadows behind him, their faces obscured by the darkness although it is clear that at least two of them are male and all of them carry some sort of melee weapon. Spike smiles. "Someone's up for a dance, eh?" It isn't exactly his turf yet, either, but Darius is working on it. Working on getting to know the locals of which he hopes to be counted soon, and building up a bit of a network. There are a lot more supernatural problems here than in the midwest, though from what he has heard recently, that's all because of some sort of mystical convergence. Drawing things together, and somehow messing with the ways between worlds. The recent problems with vampires or demons or whatever they might be has drawn the youth out after school, yet again. Not that he needs any particular reason to be out. He'd been following this trio from nearby rooftops for almost a block when they had apparently spotted some bleached blonde guy with a long leather jacket. Talk about a trip straight out of the eighties. Walking over the edge, he drops down to street level. Not exactly noiselessly, but behind the trio, and starts back into the alley, so that he is coming up behind the dumbfucks. "This isn't exactly your turf either, Stooges. There are packs hereabouts and I'm guessing you shit for brains ain't wolves," he calls out from the mouth of the alley, putting the trio between him and Spike. To Spike, the boy looks like he's an older teenager. Natural blonde hair trimmed short, tall, muscular, and not the least bit armed. He's wearing an ironic t-shirt with a short list. It reads: Things I hate: 1. T-shirts. 2. Lists. 3. Irony. Spike's shoulders slump, visibly. Flicking his long, black leather cloak behind him, the Englishman puts both hands on his hips and looks upward, chin thrust out - clearly pouting - and remarks over his shoulder: "That was my line," he tells the newcomer with an air of indignation. "You took my bloody line." Turning around, the vampire gets his first 'look' at the three 'stooges' that had supposedly crept up on him, and also at the teenager standing behind them. The vampire does not look pleased. Or threatened. But definitely not pleased. "Let me tell you how this works," he tells Darius - looking straight past the three would-be predators. "I prowl the streets. I find the Big Bad Wannabes. I stick a stake through them. And I bloody well get the line." As for the three stooges, they exchange glances. By now it is apparent that two of them - the fellows - are demons of some breed or another. The woman - shorter, thinner - is clearly a vampire. She turns around to bare her fangs at Darius while the demons look at each other. "What are we, invisible?" "Go home, kid." "I'm hungry." The teen laughs. "Sorry, mate." Taking a breath, the boy looks around and seems to be thinking about the situation, and finally makes a decision. "If it makes you feel better, you can do the line at the end of the fight. That's really the one that people remember anyway. Like, if you save the girl for last, you can be like, 'I came all the way to America, and all I should have brought was a dust-buster,' or something," Darius replies to Spike, looking right past the demons and the vampire. The kid doesn't look the least bit moved by the fact that the demons are showing their party faces. He doesn't have a party face himself, but he doesn't look even a little scared. Walking over to a nearby dumpster with a stack of pallets beside it, he hops up onto the pallets and lets his feet beat an idle pattern on the side of the stack. Not a bit of concern on his face, he reaches into a pocket, pulls out his phone, and starts texting passively. He figures they might attack at any moment, but he wants to give Spike his chance to do his thing. A good hunter should be able to shine. It's a jerk move to steal someone else's thunder. Spike snorts. "What're you waitin' for?" the taller of the two demons - human, by all appearances save for the glowing yellow eyes, and horns that slowly begin to sprout from his forehead - says to the other. "Kill 'im." The demon allows his horns to grow more fully, and his skin turns a matte black, fingernails elongating into claws. The shorter demon undergoes a similar transition - except that his hands divide at each finger, a division that extends all the way up his arms until he has tentacles instead of them. His skin turns a dark green. "You mean it? I get the vampire? Awesome!" The girl-vampire saunters over to the newcomer - Darius - and leans against the dumpster in a sultry fashion. Flicking blonde locks of hair behind her shoulders and peers up at the kid and licks her lips. Throughout the entire time that Darius plays with his phone, the girl watches him expectantly - occasionally lifting a finger to trace along the edge of the dumpster, pausing at his leg - but seeing that Darius does not appear all that interested in her... She snaps out with an arm to try and snag Darius by the shirt. Spike, on the other hand, waits for the tentacle demon to come at him, sidestepping at the last second and sticking out his foot to send the rookie demon sprawling. The Englishman looks at Darius. "Does your mother know you're out?" he asks the teenager whilst keeping half an eye on Tentacles. The girl's approach is noted with a slightly appraising eyebrow, like the eyebrow sort of says, 'I'm texting here, you're blocking my signal.' Then that hand snaps out at him and his free hand reaches out and simply grabs onto the extended limb, he sort of rotates his wrist then and his foot moves out, latches around her shoulder and idly pins her with both a shoulder lock and the pressure of his leg against the dumpster. The sounds of her bones popping out of joint can be heard as he holds her steady with that one hand. The other hand just keeps texting. The lady vampire, Vampirella, snarls, "Let go of me, mortal!" and bites into his leg, and claws with her free hand. Clearly in pain, but also panicking a little, attacking with everything she has. Her teeth however, seem to do nothing more than penetrate his pants leg. "Of course she knows, and dammit, these are good pants!" he says to the vampire girl and puts his phone back into his pocket. With an audible sound that otherwise seldom penetrates ears, he /rips the vampire's arm off/, kicks her across the alley, jumps down from the dumpster, and starts to beat her with her own arm. All the while, the youth is breathing heavily and getting a bit snarly faced without actually changing shapes. "THESE. WERE. GOOD. PANTS." There are moments in the long life of an immortal when one feels the need to stop. Take note. Appreciate the details - the little things that make life (or undeath) worth the living in the long run, the source of one's stories, anecdotes and quips... Witnessing a teenager beat a vampire to death with her own arm is one such moment. Spike is pleased. In point of fact, the English vampire is so pleased with Darius' disarming personality (pun intended), that rather than actually fight with the tentacled demon at his feet, he merely... sidesteps. Each of Spike's movements is blindingly fast - darting from one spot to another as though he were following the steps of an obscure dance (in fast forward) - and he would likely continue so were it not for the second demon. Horns. 'Horns' lunges forward with preternatural speed, cursing foully under his breath at both Spike and Darius, his claws stretched forth to rip Spike a new face. "That's enough outta you," the demon hisses past a narrow dodge from the vampire. "Got uses fer you!" Then he looks down at Tentacles, still sprawled on the ground like the rookie-demon he must be. "Get up 'n kill somethin'!" Horns yells. The clawed demon takes a deep breath, with wisps of smoke rising from the corners of his mouth, just as Spike steps within the creature's reach and puts both hands to its neck. "Let's turn that frown upside down, eh?" Spike remarks in a conversational voice, and snaps the demon's head around in the very moment it unleashes a torrent of flame from its mouth. Instead of putting the British vampire to the torch, the flames lance outward at the female vampire, setting her hair on fire. "Or... backwards, anyway," Spike amends. A second later, the flame dies - along with the demon. Amid the shrieking of the female vampire - who is so out-matched, like her friends, it is almost laughable - the tentacle-armed demon rises from the ground, standing there with his feet apart and his 'arms' writhing in a menacing fashion, looking like he is going to vomit. He does. More tentacles. Throwing the arm into a nearby dumpster, Darius partially catches fire when Vampirella does, and ends up having to pat his legs a few times to put out the flames. He doesn't blame Spike, however, as he didn't even notice the head-spinning maneuver. If anyone, he blames Horns, but having beaten her with her own arm, he steps onto her back then, grabs the top board off of one of the pallets he'd been sitting on, and dusts her on the spot with a single motion of the dulled flat-ended piece of wood. Turning his attention down the alley, the big teen reaches up into the small of his back and pulls out a ghurka knife of razor sharp polished steel and rolls his wrist once, then, remembering that he wanted to let Spike have the last line, and therefore, the last kill, he lets out a quick little whistle and underhand tosses the blade just over Spike's head. The toss put exactly where it is, and with the handle easily grabbed, so that he doesn't just impale the vampire with the thing. "Hey, pal, you opened the wrong can of worms," he quips. Unable to help himself. "Oh, har har," Spike retorts with an arm spread wide. As Tentacles rushes past the British vampire, Spike snags the ghurka blade out of the air with one hand, and reaches for 'something' of the demon to take hold of. Lips pinched together in an expression of smug defiance, Spike keeps the demon 'leashed' while he eyes the blade in his other hand appreciatively. "Bloody hell, how'd you come by this beauty?" he asks the teenager in a moment of admiration. "Haven't seen one o' these since, well...now there's a story - " He never has the chance to finish the sentence. Rather than allow itself to be tethered by one of its own tentacles, the 'Cthulu-lookalike' turns on the vampire and all but smothers him with its writhing mass. Spike topples backward, landing on his rump, and partly disappears inside the creature's oily embrace. Occasionally his head pokes out - vampire face and all - biting down on the demon's squiggly bits and ripping them free. He puts the ghurka blade to good use, severing one tentacle after another - occasionally tossing them around the alley. One lands at Darius' feet. Another looks like it will land on his head. The battle only takes moments, and ends with a sickening 8SCHLLLUUUURK!* as Spike slices the larger parts of the creature off. Climbing to his feet and picking little bits of tentacle off his beloved coat - the vampire sniffs disdainfully at the dismembered demon, and looks over his shoulder at Darius. "I'm hungry," he says. "Sushi?" Head simply bobbing to the side as the tentacle nearly lands on it, Darius walks down the alley while the creature is grappling with Spike and takes a seat again, this time on an overturned shopping cart that has been rusting there for a while. His pants are trashed anyway, so he seems to have given up on trying to salvage them from future battering. Watching the battle, he wonders how he might have handled it differently. After some short study he realizes that all his strength and speed and skill wouldn't make much difference when the opponent just sort of goes for a whole body be damned, smothering attack like that. Then Spike delivers the killing blow, and the youth shakes his head. That was the line!? Or was it an invitation for supper? Either way.. "The bait shop is closed." He stands there for a second considering the scene. Walking over, he grabs horns by his titular appendages, and rips the head off the demon before tossing both ends of the creature into a nearby dumpster. He throws the major pieces of the tentacle beast in as well. Reaching into a pocket, he pulls out a small cannister of lighter fluid and sprinkles it over the bodies, then throws a match in, followed by a few pallets. Bodies disposed of, he looks back at Spike and nods. "I'm hungry." Once the bodies have been disposed of, Spike walks over toward Darius and hands him back the ghurka blade - hilt first - smirking triumphantly. "Just so we're clear," he tells the youth, giving the lad a once-over. "Before you think about trying to beat me up with one of my own arms - I'm one o' the good guys. And... too pretty to go out like that, yeah?" He pauses. "So. Hungry. Yeah. I think there's a place, not far from here. I'm Spike. Now who're you? You don't smell like a human - you don't fight like a Slayer, not the kind I know - and you don't act like an angel...which is it?" Taking the knife, Darius treats it with due respect and cleans it off using a bit of plastic bagging and then slides it up into the sheathe, hidden beneath his shirt against his back. It would be obvious from behind, but he probably has a jacket and other stuff hidden nearby so that he can go around town without being obvious. That's standard M.O. for most guys in that line of work anyway. "Spike," he confirms the name, and nods his head in greeting. "I think I've got a good meter for people and /I think,/ you don't strike me as being like them," he tells Spike in response to the explanation. He smiles a little and rolls his shoulders a little to get the knife to sit right. "I'm Darius." He considers the second question then, and shrugs, not really intending to answer that question. The two then parted company after a brief discussion about where to get supper, and met up again shortly thereafter.